The automated job application process...

Very quick post this week as I am doing some work using gen AI, which is really fun.

A friend of mine has been applying for work and he was telling me that online tests are becoming more common. The idea is that you go onto a "recruitment site" and take a number of evaluation tests. The test can be used to filter out unsuitable candidates. In this instance, he had to complete a series of tests including an IQ test, a skills assessment, a real work assessment, a written test, a short programming test, and a spoken test.

Irrespective of the job you are trying to apply for you have to take all of these tests. He did well on all of the sections and then failed one of the more critical areas. The site does not appear to offer the option to have another go, so if you fail you fail. Being German he figured that his ability to speak English had let him down. I was surprised by this because his English is excellent.

I am from Liverpool, which means I have a fairly strong accent, so I decided to take the test as well. Fortunately, I was OK on the IQ, the programming etc, and then we arrived at the spoken English test.

For the spoken English test they played you a sentence and you had to repeat it back. Your voice was recorded and analysed. There were about 20 of these, and it took about 10 minutes. I scored 3 out of 4 on this test. Even though I am in my 50s and have lived in England my whole life, according to the test my spoken English is not up to scratch. This really made me smile.

So what happened? Was I putting on my accent deliberately? No, if anything I was talking as clearly as I could. Yet I still failed. So where did it go wrong? I did have a few issues with some of the sentences. Some of the sentences were really long, I mean really long and some were like tongue twisters. I struggled to repeat all the sentences correctly.

I failed the test. For me, that is no big deal, I wasn't looking for a job. These negative results influence which jobs you or I can apply for. If you have applied for a job, you do the tests and if you fail you are informed that you are not able to take your application any further. You are then offered other jobs that may be of interest that match your assessed skill set.

This result excludes me and my friend from applying for more than 60% of the jobs on the site because our English is not good enough for those jobs. I don't quite know what to make of this. I have never had communication issues in the many years I have been working and yet I now find that it has become a problem it seems. More importantly, how many skilled workers are being excluded because they fail the English test?

These types of tests are becoming more common it seems so it is going to be something people are going to have to learn how to pass. At the moment though we are where we are and so I reckon I best get myself lined up for some elocution lessons!

Bryan